The Right Peace

Bush administration officials seem to think the U.S. enjoys a special exemption from history in this regard. Flushed with triumph in Afghanistan, and the awesome display of American power, they talk of a “new American empire.” U.S. policymakers have succumbed to hubris in the false belief that American dominance is an unchallengeable fact of international life.

They believe the U.S. can use its muscle to bring about regime changes, and to compel others to embrace American-style democracy and free markets. They believe America can impose its will on the world, and stabilize endemically turbulent regions like the Persian Gulf and Central Asia.

Don‘t bet on it, however. The lessons of the past tell us that the very fact of America’s overwhelming power is bound to produce a geopolitical backlash. It is only a short step from the celebration of imperial “glory” to the recessional of imperial power. The United States must be careful not to overreach, and fall victim to the “hegemon‘s temptation” by overextending itself strategically. At the end of the day, hegemons are defeated not just by the counterhegemonic behavior of other states, but by mounting internal weaknesses -- economic, political and social -- caused by the burdens of hegemony, which are a consequence of their own overweening geopolitical and ideological ambitions. That is, hegemons fall victim to what Yale historian Paul Kennedy famously called “imperial overstretch.” If the Bush administration indeed goes to war with Iraq, it will have embarked on a fateful policy that pushes the United States down the road to imperial overstretch, and decline. And that is why Realists, and we Taftian conservatives, believe the administration is following an ill-considered policy with respect to Iraq.

Christopher Layne is Visiting Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent articles are “A New Grand Strategy,” The Atlantic Monthly (January 2002), and “Offshore Balancing Revisited,” The Washington Quarterly (Spring 2002).